`ASK MY BROTHER,' REPLIES JEB BUSH ABOUT GEORGE W.'S ALLEGED DRUG USE

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who acknowledges a youthful
indiscretion with marijuana, says he can't speak for his big brother.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, front-runner for the Republican
presidential nomination, indirectly has declared himself drug-free for
25 years. But he has refused to say if he ever used illegal drugs.

Tuesday, reporters asked the Florida governor about his brother. ``Ask
my brother,'' Bush said. But his brother isn't revealing anything, a
reporter replied.

``That's my point,'' said Bush, departing quickly.

During his election campaign, Jeb Bush acknowledged having tried
marijuana when he was 17. At the time, the gubernatorial candidate was
proposing that the state suspend college financial aid for students
convicted of drug offenses.

Smoking marijuana ``was a stupid thing to do,'' Bush said, ``and it
was wrong.''

George W. Bush, the 53-year-old Texas governor, says he could pass a
background check for White House appointees that disallows drug use in
the last seven years.

The Texan says he also could have passed a tougher test when his
father was president and set ``the most stringent conditions'' --
initially requiring appointees to be drug-free for 15 years. George
Bush assumed office in 1989, indicating that his oldest son denies any
drug use since 1974.

But that is the limit of George W. Bush's details. ``I have told the
people of this country that over two decades ago I made some mistakes,
when I was younger,'' he explained last week. ``I have learned from
those mistakes.''

Bush's refusal to specifically answer questions about cocaine use has
spawned speculation as wild as a mock campaign commercial aired on
Late Night with David Letterman on Friday -- a fictional Bush
confession to using ``enough cocaine to take down a
rhinoceros.''

Republican rivals have denied using illegal drugs.

Vice President Al Gore, seeking the Democratic nomination, has
acknowledged using marijuana in his youth. When then-U.S. Sen. Gore
confessed to this during the 1987 presidential campaign, then-Vice
President George Bush said he never used marijuana, ``But I'd hate to
speak for my kids.''

``If anything, this story is mostly a media-driven effort to kind of
generate more action,'' says Jack Citrin, a political science
professor at the University of California at Berkeley. ``Here you have
a race where Bush is the front-runner. . . . All front-runners tend to
get cut down to size.''

At the same time, says Citrin, an expert on voter participation in
elections: ``The more interesting part of this is, do people care about this?

``That is a little more uncertain. Any kind of bad news that people
hear has some kind of impact. If you get a guy like Mr. Bush who says,
`I am clean, I am for family,' and then takes the stand on what he did
30 years ago and hasn't answered the question . . . these things sort
of don't go away.''